Although the methodologies for describing many types of linguistic variation have been well developed, satisfactory theoretical links between data and explanation – especially links that include causal mechanisms – remain lacking. This article argues, somewhat paradoxically, that even though most choices reflect some societal pattern, speakers make linguistic choices as individuals. That is, choices ultimately lie with the individual and are rationally based. Rational Choice Models (e.g. Elster 1979, 1989, 1997) provide explanatory mechanisms for the ways actors in society select from alternative structures and available options. The Rational Choice approach taken here is enhanced by diverse theories of human action (e.g. Damasio 1996, Klein 1998, Lessig 1995). Analysis of codeswitching examples within a recasting of the Markedness Model (Myers-Scotton, e.g. 1993, 1998) suggests how a rationally based model offers better explanations for linguistic variation than do other approaches.

The present study demonstrates how prosody – specifically, onset level – is deployed in situated interaction to cue frames of interpretation for talk. It shows not only that final pitch level in intonational contours is a relevant parameter, but also that, under certain conditions, initial pitch level may provide a situationally specific contextualization cue. In calls to radio phone-in programs, for instance, there is a so-called anchor position where callers can be expected to announce the reason for their calls. Close empirical analysis of data from such a program reveals that it is here that the first turn-constructional unit is routinely formatted with high onset. The studio moderator displays an orientation to this kind of prosodic formatting by withholding further talk until the caller has made a recognizably complete statement of the reason for the call. On occasion, turn-constructional units in anchor position are heard to lack a high onset. When this happens, the moderator responds in a way that shows he is not treating callers' talk as the reason for the call, but rather as a preface to the statement of reason.

This article discusses Turkish-German bilingual children's intonation patterns as they relate to processes of contact-induced language change. Bilingual speakers use two distinct rises in both Turkish and German. One rise (L*HH%) resembles a characteristic German rise, while the other (L%H%) resembles a characteristic Turkish rise. The rises pattern pragmatically in ways that are non-normative for both Turkish and German. Although this pattern is not clearly attributable to language interference (either borrowing or shift-induced language change), it is certainly the result of language contact. Fusion is proposed to account for the two-way influence between the two languages.

This article explores the effects of ethnic stereotypes, demographic shifts, and nationalism on language choice in the town of Dangriga, Belize. Dangriga was founded during the nineteenth century by members of an ethnic minority of West African and Native American heritage, known as the Garinagu or Garifuna. Today, it is a multilingual and multiethnic town populated primarily by Garinagu, Belizean Creoles, and both native-born and foreign-born Spanish speakers. In this context, language choice is in part a question of affiliation with a variety of ethnic and national identities. This article examines the manner in which ethnic and national stereotypes and images, as well as current demographic shifts in the Belizean population, affect language choice in multilingual contexts. Particular attention is paid to the position of young Garinagu vis-à-vis the Garifuna language and Belizean English Creole.

Why does linguistic diversity exist? This is the question to which this book is addressed. Nettle argues that, although aspects of the diversity of languages have been studied, the reason for this diversity has not been a subject of attention. To answer the question, he suggests that a multidisciplinary approach is necessary – a broad linguistic anthropology in which the linguistic map is explained by people's social behavior, which in turn arises largely from their ecological situation.

This volume makes available to us a revised and expanded collection of essays originally published in 1992 as a special issue of the journal Pragmatics. In a masterful and greatly expanded introduction to the volume, Kathryn Woolard establishes the parameters of a field that seeks to advance the goal of linking work on language structure with that on language politics, as well as with linguistic and social theory more generally.

As Verschueren writes in his preface, this book is an attempt to meet a double challenge: (a) to present a coherent theory of pragmatics, describing research to date and setting parameters for future research; and (b) to serve as a textbook that is accessible to all students with a basic linguistics background. This is no easy task, but Verschueren has managed to write a book that is accessible to the nonspecialist student and also provides a valuable synthesis of the pragmatic perspective for language specialists in a variety of disciplines. Most chapters have detailed summaries and are followed by suggestions for future research and additional reading.

This is a great book. In it, Shuy describes some of the applied linguistics consultancy work he has undertaken in the past twenty years, mostly involving legal cases and public institutions in the US. He sets out to show how linguistics is a valuable tool in the analysis of bureaucratic language, in the hopes that that through this, “the intersection of law and linguistics may be furthered” (x), and that more fellow linguists will become involved in similar consultancy. Shuy gives a clear exposition not only of what he and colleagues have done but also of how they have negotiated working relationships. He is particularly strong on the ethics of consultancy, and his clear exposition of how the consultancy relationship should be set up merits attention from people well beyond the area of language study. Shuy's case studies and ethical points would be good preliminary reading for students undertaking language project work (for more on ethics, see BAAL 1994).

In a time when some scholars are bemoaning an apparent drop in attention to the role of ideology in legal settings, Philips's new book comes as a welcome intervention. The author uses fine-grained analysis of courtroom language to reveal the pervasive influence of ideology on trial court judges' practices. Followers of Philips's pioneering work on legal language will not be disappointed; the volume lives up to the exacting standard she set for the field in her early articles on courtroom (and classroom) discourse. The study uses discourse analysis of guilty pleas in an Arizona criminal court to uncover how wider social-structural and political divisions are affecting the administration of justice – a process mediated by ideology and enacted in the minute details of linguistic exchanges.

Yiddish has attracted more public and scholarly interest than any other Jewish language. There are a number of reasons: its thousand-year history as a Jewish internal vernacular for Ashkenazi Jews; the development during the 19th and 20th centuries of an important literature in the language; the bitterness of the struggle with Hebrew, in the first part of the 20th century, for status as a symbol of Jewish nationalism; the tragedy of the extermination of most of its speakers by the Nazis; and the pain of its suppression under Stalin. It is no doubt a sign that Yiddish is no longer being seen as a threat to Hebrew that the Israeli Knesset established and funded, three years ago, the Natzionale Instantz fur Yiddisher Kultur. The first activities of this Authority (a series of concerts, lectures, and other events) have just been announced, after a long leadership struggle that has reflected the complex politics of the movement.

Soviet Yiddish occupies a special place in Yiddish linguistics. It is different from klal-Yiddish – ‘rule’-Yiddish, or normative Yiddish – in having certain orthographic peculiarities and a quite striking oddness in the spelling of words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin. These differences, which were ideologically driven and enforced by the Soviets, are plain to see and visually startling even to neophyte readers of ordinary Yiddish. The older British spellings gaol, kerb, and tyre for jail, curb, and tire convey something of the effect to the American English speaker.

China's program of language modernization has been as successful as that of any other nation, yet until Chen's book, we have not had a readable and comprehensive discussion of its reforms. Literacy has risen from about 10% in 1949 to around 80% today. Spoken Chinese dialects, from Cantonese through Hakka to Mandarin, vary as much as do the Germanic languages English, German, and Swedish; so it is a major achievement that 90% of Chinese people can now understand Standard Mandarin, up from 40% in the 1950s (p. 8). The current reforms have roots deep in the 19th century, but Chen discusses how early visions of reform became successful only in the past few decades. An unusual virtue of this compact volume is that it discusses language reforms throughout Greater China – not only in the People's Republic, including Hong Kong, but in Taiwan and Singapore as well.

Hong Kong has received much world attention in recent years. After a century and half of colonial occupation, it was returned to China in 1997. Before British rule, it was an unremarkable seaside outpost of Guangzhou (Canton), the premier city in South China. Thus, the speech of its overwhelming majority is called “Cantonese” in English. In fact, Hong Kong and Guangzhou share essentially the same speech, the primary differences being lexical choices.

This is a collection of 19 articles written by educators, policymakers, and linguists addressing the use of Pacific languages in education. The focus is on small island countries, and so Australia is not included. The book, well illustrated and containing many useful maps, is edited by two scholars with extensive research experience in the Pacific. They have grouped the articles around three important themes relevant to local education systems: (a) the roles of vernaculars in formal education; (b) questions of policy, maintenance, and non-governmental programs; and (c) issues, problems, standards, and attitudes. The result is a book that presents a compelling picture of the linguistic situation of various education systems in the Pacific nations. To summarize the situation briefly: Nothing is simple.

This volume is an important contribution to sociolinguistic analysis and critique. It explicitly addresses the challenge of Labov 1982 – made to linguists nearly twenty years ago – to tackle the persistent questions asked by the public: “What is linguistics about? And what is it good for?” Indeed, arguments presented in Labov's article, which appeared in this journal, quickly became the canon for many African American linguists on how to defend working in a field that studied a social and cultural system without talking about its social and cultural implications. Labov provided support for conducting sociolinguistic work when the Black Power movement, and public awareness of social injustice against Black people, were at their height. He also provided an arsenal of arguments to present to linguists on the importance of recognizing the politics and social consequences of our work. Baugh's text is in the spirit of Labov's challenge, and it represents a further demonstration of the ways linguistic research can be used to address social prejudice and injustice.

This book is something we've needed for a long time. It lays out what everyone – the public as well as professionals in all fields – should understand about dialects and dialect differences in our increasingly diverse encounters. It is written with technical sophistication, wise judgment, and a clear style, with rich examples that make it accessible to students and clinicians (and maybe even marketable as a trade book). LiS readers may learn little new to them, but they can assign this book with confidence to any class, and they can read it profitably as a model of how to talk about this controversial topic to non-linguists. Given this kind of book – non-controversial to linguists themselves – it seems most useful for a review to indicate the scope of the eight chapters and Appendix.

In the continuing debate on the origins of creole languages, Lefebvre has long taken a strong stance in favor of an essential contribution of the West African substratum to the grammatical makeup of Haitian Creole; thus, she opposes both a universalist account along the lines of Derek Bickerton's bioprogram (e.g. 1984), and Robert Chaudenson's superstratist approach (e.g. 1992). Lefebvre's present book summarizes the main findings of two decades of research by herself and others (such as John Lumsden and Anne-Marie Brousseau) through various projects carried out at the Université du Québec à Montréal. The overall aim of this enterprise has been to test the hypothesis that adult speakers of the substratum languages, in creating a new creole language, use the properties of their native lexicons as well as the parametric values and semantic interpretation rules of their native grammars (9). In order to test this hypothesis, Haitian Creole is compared, on the one hand, with its superstratum or lexifier language, French, and on the other hand, with Fongbe (or Fon, belonging to the Gbe cluster of Kwa languages), as a representative of the substratum. Most of the book consists of the presentation of such three-way comparisons in regard to nominal structure (Chap. 4), the marking of tense, mood, and aspect (Chap. 5), pronouns (Chap. 6), clausal operators and the structure of the clause (Chaps. 7–8), the properties of verbs (Chap. 9), derivational affixes (Chap. 10), compounds (Chap. 11), and parametric options (Chap. 12). In all these areas, striking similarities between Haitian and Fongbe are revealed.

Lexical acculturation has received moderate attention through the years, but largely from the perspective of acculturative studies of individual languages, or from that of the incorporation of loans from one specific language into another. A few authors have attempted comparative studies of patterns across regional areas or several languages, but rarely on the scale represented by Brown's study. In this volume, he looks at 77 concepts and items of acculturation from European sources in 292 Native American languages, covering the whole of the New World. But this work is more than a catalog of these items in the native languages: it is also a thorough discussion and analysis of the apparent processes and principles by which such transfers take place. Brown hopes that, through such massive comparisons and analyses, the basic principles and processes of linguistic acculturation will become better understood and thereby take on some predictive value in specific situations.

This volume presents four case studies of language use in communities that speak Kaqchikel (also spelled Cakchiquel), a Mayan language of Guatemala; the authors provide a rich picture of the varying patterns of language shift within a single language group. They situate the current practices in both time and space, reviewing linguistic policy from Spanish colonial times to the present, and they demonstrate how state-level programs have played out differently within different communities. Universalistic considerations of hegemony, nationalism, economic pressure, and availability of educational resources are balanced against local realities of micro-economics, municipal politics, and the job market. A Kaqchikel author, Wuqu' Ajpub', contributes a personal history which grounds the generalizations and historical particularities of the community-based case studies in human terms. The time depth of the case studies emphasizes the constantly changing nature of language interactions within the Kaqchikel region. Each of them brings one to the conclusion that the community is currently on a cusp where Kaqchikel language maintenance within the next generation is an open question. The authors strive for a positive perspective and champion linguistic revitalization; however, their data do not predict a resurgence, though they do not preclude one.